The Visit In The Night
by TheDreamerLady
Summary: Kuru could justify anything to comfort The Princess. Pre-Kulex, no real spoilers, set directly after the events of Destiny's Daughter.
1. Nighttime

I do not own The Elephant Princess, but having recently discovered it on Hulu, I must admit that I've fallen a bit in love with it. If you catch any mistakes(and there will be quite a few, I'm sure), feel free to alert me to them. Enjoy!

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The Princess slept, and Kuru found himself entranced. Her appearance in his room no longer surprised him, though it was still distinctly uncomfortable. The first time had been after she'd turned herself into a frog, and late at night, long after their uncomfortable (and, Kuru would almost admit dishonest) discussion of how he had freed her.

Like a whirlwind, she'd walked through his door, and flounced onto his bed. Despite his pointed remarks of the importance of a solid eight hours of rest before school, she'd stayed, asking him questions, both about magic and Manjipoor, and himself. As the conversation flowed, she'd kicked off her shoes, and settled her head into his pillows, while watching him sitting cross-legged on the floor. While Kuru would not say that he knew what was going through The Princess' head, he might have bet that she was debating asking him to come closer. Thankfully, she did not request that, for Kuru could not, would not, break all the rules of propriety like that. When she'd finally fallen asleep, he'd covered her carefully with a blanket, and gone to sleep on the floor, purposefully facing away from her so that he could not gaze upon her face.

The next day she'd yelled at him for letting her steal his bed, and he'd nodded, and told her that he would do as she wished, meaning no such thing. What, after all, could he do? Kick her out of bed? Join her?

And then, she started to appear almost regularly. Something would occur to upset The Princess, and she'd enter his room, following the pattern established on the first night. Talking, so much talking, before The Princess finally dozed off, and Kuru covered her with a blanket, careful not to touch her, or awaken her. In the mornings, she would berate him for sleeping on the floor, and he would humor her. The habit almost seemed safe. Kuru had allowed himself not to report to Omar on it, and tried to convince himself that if The Princess wanted to sleep in his room it wasn't wrong.

That line of reasoning had worked, up until tonight.

This night, Kuru was not seated on the floor, was not facing away from The Princess, and was not following any of the rules. This night, Kuru held The Princess in his arms. Perhaps, if he failed to think of her as The Princess, and as Alex instead, it would be easier. Kuru shook his head, slowly, careful not to move enough to jostle The Princess.

He'd known she would appear that night. After the morning she'd had, after the way she'd chewed him out, after this tradition of 'Mother's Day', The Princess would want to talk. She might even want to apologize for putting him into his proper place that morning. He would listen, respectfully, but would ignore it. The Princess must learn not to apologize for behaving correctly, he reminded himself, while he cleaned his room half-heartedly.

True to form, close to eleven, The Princess had appeared at his door, throwing it open, and then knocking. Kuru would have smiled at the apparent paradox, but he'd noticed her tears before his smile even had a chance to reach his face. Her tears, the way she bit her lower lip, how her eyes had studied his face, the entire image had been seared into his memory, and Kuru could have turned The Princess away no more than he could have refused a royal command. In retrospect, he was not entirely sure why those two scenarios weren't one and the same.

He'd opened his arms, knowing, somehow, the signal she wanted, and Alex(he could not think of the girl who cried her eyes out in his arms as The Princess), buried herself in his arms, mumbling words too fast, and too soft for him to understand. Kuru didn't ask for her to repeat herself, assuming that he, a lowly servant didn't need to understand. After a while of holding her, and making listening noises every few minutes, he'd though she might be more comfortable sitting, and moved her towards the bed she seemed so fond of. She'd refused to let go of him, so he'd sat down as well.

Other than that small change, things had progressed in a similar fashion as always. Alex continued speaking, and Kuru listened, forcing himself to ignore the pressure on his side where she cuddled next to him, the way her eyes caught the little light available in his room, or the way her eyes shined, or the way she smelled. Kuru made himself into a man of stone, letting no part of himself reflect the feelings that The Princess always stirred in him.

And, again, true to form, Alex eventually drifted off to sleep, leaving Kuru gazing longingly at the floor space next to his bed. If he could move Alex enough to slip away, reclaim the proper space for a man of his stature, then he could continue to believe that these evening meant nothing, and were not worth reporting. If he couldn't escape, if he spent the night with The Princess in his arms, then, then- Kuru ignored the trail of thought. He just needed to remove himself, get The Princess off his lap, her hand off his arm, and safely away from him.

Kuru shifted experimentally, and Alex growled softly. He would have cursed, or laughed, but either way, he might awaken The Princess, and then what would he do? With a soft moan to himself, Kuru leaned back again the wall, and closed his eyes. The Princess could not be moved, at least, not just yet, and he could not magic himself out of his predicament. Ignoring the voice that whispered Kuru's efforts so far had been lackluster, and that he might try harder, Kuru opened his eyes, reached up with his free hand to brush the hair off of Alex's face.

Perhaps this was just a dream, Kuru told himself. Perhaps the punishment of spending the night holding The Princess was worth it. Perhaps, after the way she'd spoken to him in front of Omar, she would want to send him away, and wanted just one last night with him listening.

Kuru made a decision, and closed his eyes once more. He would deal with all of this in the morning, but for now, he would just soak up his time with The Princess.

He drifted off to sleep with Omar's words echoing through his head.

"You won't always be her servant."

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Please Review!

If you'd like to see a morning after scene, let me know. I haven't written one, but I wouldn't be adverse to it.

~The Dreamer Lady


	2. Daytime

And the second part! I did edit the first one a little bit, just changing one paragraph around a little bit. I hope you enjoy the morning after, from Alex's point of view.

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Discomfort awakened Alex every time she spent the night in Kuru's bed. Honestly, Kuru's ability to sleep on a bed as comfortable as a sack of rocks measured high on Alex's list of Kuru's attributes, third or fourth on the list even.

Alex scrunched her nose, picturing a list, deciding that sleeping in uncomfortable places would rank above getting kissed by girls who shouldn't be noticing him, and below his unique ability to make her feel like a misbehaving five year old.

Shifting slightly, trying to find a comfortable position, Alex felt a frown forming on her face. Something felt off, different, and the rock mattress didn't account for the strangeness. Lips pursing, she thought about the last time she'd ended up in Kuru's bed, and how it compared to this time.

A second later, she had her answer- heat. Unlike every other time she'd ended up here, she'd woken up feeling warm. Also, a weight rested on her waist, and the room's usual incense smell had subtle changes.

Kuru must have invested in a new blanket, she decided, one warm enough for a room made almost entirely of concrete. Only, well, a blanket wouldn't be breathing on her.

Alex's breath quicken, and she thought hard about what had happened the night before. She'd come into Kuru's room, a total wreck, thinking about her meeting with her mother, the way Vashan had tried to use her mother's visage to his own advantage(just remembering made her pulse pound), and her first magical fight.

She'd desperately needed a shoulder to cry on, and Kuru had been available(always ready to serve her).

Eyes opened wide, and then squeezed shut again. Oh, she'd cried on his shoulder alright, and then fallen asleep on him. Oh, no. Kuru's droning lectures about propriety echoed through her head, and she felt herself blush. Living this down would not be easy, not at all.

Because Alex didn't know much about Manjipoorian customs, but she felt sure that spooning with your elephant boy wasn't one of them.

"Princess, have you awakened?" Alex jerked back, into Kuru's(incredibly warm) body.

"Uh, yeah. I mean, I just did. Yeah. I'm awake." Alex felt certain that if she blushed any harder, she would literally burst into flames(which she hoped wouldn't happen magically, in fact, she hoped it _couldn't_happen magically).

"Perhaps, Princess, you'd like to get up then." Kuru's voice sounded almost cold, or perhaps it just sounded more formal than it usually did. Alex didn't feel sure about either option though. She knew that Kuru sounded different.

"Princess?" Kuru prompted again, and Alex shook her head, attempting to quell any curiosity about Kuru's tone, or the fact that he'd said Princess three times in less than a minute, and she wanted to tell him off. But it would hold until she was out of bed, and dressed in daytime clothing.

She pulled the blanked off her legs, feeling Kuru's arm finally retreat from her side, wondering if she should not that he hadn't pulled away until then, and unconsciously deciding not to even consider it anything out of the ordinary.

She would have walked right out Kuru's room, right then, without even a backwards at the boy she'd fallen asleep on, but something prompted her to glance back, and what she saw caused her to falter.

Kuru, swift(she'd have to add his speed to the list of things she noticed about him), already sat up, but he looked down, at his lap, rather than watching her leave. He normally watched her, probably to make sure that her posture benefited her stature as the Crown Princess.

Normally that thought would have made her laugh, or at least crack a grin, but she couldn't look away from Kuru's apparent dejection. Though, maybe he was just stiff from sleeping in an uncomfortable position? She stopped walking away, and moved to face him.

"Kuru?" Alex suppressed the desire to ask him if he felt okay. She wanted him to answer the unspoken question without prompting. This whole morning had a sort of fragility that she did not wish to break with a careless question.

"I am fine, Princess." Alex's expression darkened slightly after the fourth Princess of the morning. She continued standing, waiting for Kuru to continue speaking. He still hadn't looked up from his lap, and Alex figured he would start a lecture at any moment. And if he did, she'd walk right out.

She knew exactly how to deal with his exasperating habit of talking about how Princesses were suppose to act. She didn't know how to deal with how unhappy he looked right now. Perhaps Kuru felt guilty about failing to measure up to his personal, impossible, standards.

"We- I cannot continue this." Kuru stated, after the silence had stretched, becoming almost tangible.

He finally looked up, catching Alex's gaze. Alex opened her mouth, to argue, to remind him that they were friends, and that. Kuru had one more thing to say, and Alex found she couldn't cut him off.

"Please. I- please." Kuru's eyes were dark, unhappy, and Alex couldn't refuse him, not when he asked for so little.

But instead of agreeing, she looked at him, and then turned and stomped out of the room, calling at him over her shoulder.

"You'd better hurry up, or we'll be late for school."

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I hope you enjoyed it!

Feel free to review!


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